


come morning light (you and i'll be safe and sound)

by eponnia



Category: BURROUGHS Edgar Rice - Works, Tarzan of the Apes & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Tarzan (2016)
Genre: Childbirth, Cross-Posted on FanFictionNet, F/M, Implied/Referencd Character Death, Missing Scene, POV Female Character, Past Stillbirth, Pregnancy, cross posted on tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 08:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12908247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eponnia/pseuds/eponnia
Summary: She can feel his hand trembling slightly when he slowly lays his palm flat against her stomach; he might be able to wrestle a python and win, but an unborn child reduces them both to a terrified mess.Jane is with child a second time. The news is not quite cause for celebration.





	come morning light (you and i'll be safe and sound)

**Author's Note:**

> On one hand, the fact that in the 2016 film that, after Tarzan/John and Jane's miscarriage, they finally had a baby that survived makes me tear up just thinking about it. But on the other hand, given that they had lost their first child, Jane's second pregnancy must have been beyond terrifying. 
> 
> The title is from "Safe and Sound" by Taylor Swift and The Civil Wars.

"Jane?"

Her stomach is in knots as she looks up from the book she can't focus on. John stands in the doorway, confusion and worry in his blue eyes as the crackling fireplace shades his features in their dark bedroom. "Wasimbu told me you needed me. That it was urgent."

Her fingers shake when they slide down the pages of her novel, the book's cover snapping closed as she sets it aside. She pulls her knees up to her chest as she sits in their bed, her resting place for the past few days during a bout of what she had thought was a simple illness.

"John, I…" She picks at the light blanket, looking down at the material, and draws a shaky breath through her nose. "I am with child again."

She risks a glance at her husband.

John's eyes are wide as he stares at her, and for a moment it looks like he can't breathe. "Are you certain?"

She nods, swallowing hard. "Yes," she says quietly, brushing a strand of her loose hair from her face. "I know the signs from, well, last time."

The room falls silent.

"I thought it was malaria," she offers after a moment. "Rather, I tried to convince myself it was malaria. But it is not." Tears well in her eyes. "John, I am so scared."

Instantly he is at her side, joining her on the bed to sit with her. "Perhaps it won't end the same way this time."

"But what if it does?" she bursts out, and he covers her hand with one of his calloused ones.

"It might not."

"But it might. Women with previously failed pregnancies have a higher chance of having a repeated miscarriage." She starts to tremble, tears threatening to spill, and she feels like she will crack and shatter into pieces. The terror she feels is deeper than when she had been kidnapped by Rom, or when she had almost been attacked by the Mangani ape. It seeps through the marrow in her bones and courses through her veins, and every beat of her pounding heart only intensifies her fear. "I cannot go through this again. I cannot endure losing another child." Her voice drops to a whisper. "I will not be able to survive it."

She leans into him as tears slid down her skin, gripping a fistful of his shirt and clinging to him like a lifeline. He pulls her against his chest, one arm around her as his other hand runs through her hair, and she knows the same memory fills both their heads.

_He bursts through the door even though the doctor says it is not proper for her husband to see her._

_She is curled up in a ball on their massive feather bed, crying so hard she can't breathe, and blood stains her nightgown between her legs and the sheets beneath her. She clutches her still-swollen stomach as if it was filled with their child who was now being carried away by the midwife they had carefully chosen to bring their child into the world alive, not take away dead._

_Rain dapples his coat from the long ride he had been on with the stable master, but it is the tears in John's eyes that takes her by surprise as he crosses the room to her._

_She has never seen him cry before. Fear, grief, yes, not never tears._

_He kneels on the floor beside the bed, reaching out a hand to run down her back, but she cries out at his touch on her overly-sensitive body not yet healed. He immediately pulls his hand away, but she extends an arm, and he grasps her fingers._

_"Do not leave me," she sobs._

_"Nothing will keep me from you," he says in a low, rough voice._

_She buries her face in a pillow and screams her grief for all of England to hear._

His hand runs gently down her spine, but then she feels his palm going to her hip, and when his fingers brush her still-flat stomach, she tenses.

"You did not hurt me," she murmurs when he pulls away, and, after a moment, his hand hovers over her torso. She can feel his hand trembling slightly when he slowly lays his palm flat against her stomach; he might be able to wrestle a python and win, but an unborn child reduces them both to a terrified mess.

"We can return to England if you wish," he begins, but she shakes her head.

"The best doctors in England could not help the first time." A pained look settles in his blue gaze as she offers a faint smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "I would rather stay here."

"If that is what you desire."

She nods. "That lengthy of a journey might not be wise in my condition, even as early as it is." Her throat closes up. "We cannot take any risks. And I promise I will be even more careful this time."

"What happened last time was not your fault."

"How could it have not been?" she begins, panic rising in her chest like a tidal wave, but he cups her face in his hands. "What if I somehow k–"

"Look at me." His tone is low and urgent, his blue eyes locking with hers. "You did not kill our child. _You did not_. Jane, you could not control what happened any more than you can control the rain. We will take every precaution," he adds, resting his forehead against hers, "but none of that was you’re doing. Trust me."

Her only response is the tears that finally slide down her cheeks.

* * *

She won't let him leave when her time comes.

If they were in England, he would barred from entering the room and sent off to drink cognac with the doctor in the study, and she would be laid out on her back on a stark white bed with only a strict midwife for company. But here in Boma, she is surrounded by every woman in the village no matter their age, her friends and surrogate family singing and laughing and calling out enthusiastic encouragements as they crowd around her to watch the birth. She has an endless number of hands to grip through her pains, but there is only one that she wants to hold.

Even in America, she would not be allowed to leave the bed, let alone walk about the room, but here she is free to do what her body tells her. And so she delivers the heir to the Greystoke name standing in a hut with a dirt floor, her husband holding her up as an African woman – who Jane considers a close friend and the mother she never had – instead of an English midwife, catches the baby.

Jane is sure there is no sound more beautiful on earth than the ear-splitting squalls of their child as she is settled onto a grass mat with John's help, her exhausted body unable to support her any longer. When their son is placed in Jane's arms, she bursts into tears, and John kisses his wife's forehead with a glimmer in his own eyes.

They cling to each other as their second child cries and screams and _lives_.

**Author's Note:**

> I know this fic is labelled as a missing scene, not an AU, but even after a year or two after the miscarriage happened, would John really leave Jane while she was in labor? Would she really let him out of her sight during that, given their past concerning childbirth? 
> 
> The first time around, given that they were in England, I'm sure they were separated during the delivery due to Victorian society rules. But now you're telling me that in Boma, two people who spent the entire movie defying societal norms are still apart when she has their second child? I don't buy it.


End file.
